By Robert Goldrich

In some respects Joel Rodriguez’s career has come full circle in that one of his early roosts was San Francisco-based boutique agency Black Rocket (now Heat) where he served as an art director. Along the way he moved on to larger and higher profile shops such as BBDO New York, TBWAChiatDay, New York, Fallon Minneapolis and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco.
    Yet now, once again, he finds himself back at a smaller agency, recently named to serve as a creative director at 180LA. In a sense, 180LA hearkens back to his Black Rocket roots and he likes the idea of such a homecoming.
    “The thought of coming to a smaller, leaner place attracted me,” related Rodriguez. “There’s the chance to help build something and have a real impact and imprint on what 180LA becomes.”
    Still, 180LA was already on a growth curve when Rodriguez arrived. During its first year, the agency has grown from three people to more than 50 full-time staffers. And while Rodriguez will work primarily on the adidas account, which is also a marquee client of 180 Amsterdam, there’s also some new business that could garner his attention, including the recent win of the Bombay Sapphire account. Plus, Rodriguez will be involved in new client pitches.
    Over the years, Rodriguez’s work has garnered recognition from assorted industry competitions, including the Cannes Lions and The One Show. Among the clients he has created for have been Yahoo!, FedEx, HP, Hyundai, Comcast and Sprint–the latter four coming most recently at Goodby. Perhaps most notably he was part of the creative team on the Sprint spot “Manning’s Mind,” which in visual, abstract terms depicted the in-game thought process of football quarterback Peyton Manning. Rodriguez was also an art director on the digital component of that campaign for Goodby. He now reflects on his new opportunity at 180LA.

SHOOT: Part of what drew you to 180LA was the chance to be at a smaller advertising agency and to have a greater impact on helping to shape a shop. What other factors attracted you to 180?

Rodriguez: It came down mostly to the fact that [executive creative director] William Gelner is spearheading the operation. I’ve long admired his work and for that matter the work 180 has done in Amsterdam over the years. The idea of coming to a smaller place and being able to work with Gelner, [180LA president] Mike Allen and [partner/executive producer] Peter Cline was too good an opportunity to pass up. And I’m finding that the communication and collaboration between 180LA and Amsterdam is very healthy. We share work and ideas, which is a dynamic I value.

SHOOT: Your industry experience spans boutique as well as very large agencies. Could you reflect on what you learned at these shops of different size and scale?

Rodriguez: I actually started out as an art director at Saatchi in San Francisco right out of Art Center. After a brief time there, I went to Black Rocket. It was a great experience to start out there. There were only about 35 people on staff. And when you run that lean while handling accounts like Yahoo!, MTV , Wired magazine and Morgan Stanley, you get to wear many hats and to see the nuts and bolts of how the industry works.
    For MTV, for example, we had limited resources. So if the print producer were on vacation, you had to call photographers yourself. If you couldn’t get or afford the right photographer, you had to do the photography yourself. In one case I was both photographer and art director on a job. You were forced into different roles and had to be versatile, meaning that you got the chance to learn a great deal about many things.
    From there I went to the other end of the spectrum, going over to BBDO New York. There you had everything at your fingertips but there was still a lot to learn. It all comes down to the people you work with and I was fortunate enough to work with a terrific creative director there, Gerry Graf. I was an associate creative director and we did great stuff for accounts like Guinness and FedEx.
    Working with Gerry was a tremendous experience–so much so that when he left for TBWAChiatDay in New York, I followed him over there. I came in there as a creative director and worked on Embassy Suites primarily and then some Sprint when Sprint came together with Nextel. Gerry gave you the chance to grow and challenge yourself.

SHOOT: Then you went to Fallon in Minneapolis. What prompted you to make this move to the Midwest?

Rodriguez: I wanted to sink my teeth into some digital work and other kinds of thinking. I stayed there for about a year before going over to Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.
    My wife and I had been thinking about moving back to California. I had actually interned at Goodby back in 1997 so I had a connection there and went for it. They redefined themselves during my most recent time there in terms of getting established in digital and interactive. I enjoyed my time there but felt the call to get back to a smaller place and the 180LA opportunity emerged.

SHOOT: You refer to being bitten by the digital bug. How has the interactive world impacted your role as a creative director? How have creatives generally been affected? Do you find yourself having to wear more hats?

Rodriguez: It’s forced creatives to think not only as creatives but to think like a producer, to think like a media person. Media is so important, in some respects just as big an idea as the idea itself. Sometimes media can be the idea–how you get the message out to people, how you connect with the right audience.
    Today you’re forced to think like a digital person, a marketing person, a product developer. You constantly have to think about different ways to reach out to people since the sandbox is so much bigger now, so much more than just traditional TV, radio and print. You have to think of many disciplines at once.
    And you have to think about something that may not even yet exist because there are so many more possibilities today as digital has not been fully explored and tapped into.
    That makes me have to serve at times as more of a producer, more of a media person–and the flip side is that a producer has to be more of a creative today. It’s an exciting evolution. That’s why I’m so glad to be working with Peter [Cline] who really gets it in terms of the different roles we all have to play.

SHOOT: How did you get into the advertising business?

Rodriguez: I’ve been drawing since I was born. It’s always been part of my life and it led to me first becoming an illustrator.

I got serious about it as a teenager in high school, got a chance to do some large posters and I surprised myself, my family and friends that I could illustrate for a living.

I got odd jobs and eventually started doing illustration for advertising projects for Starkist Tuna–packaging and posters.
    But as I got more into it, I realized that I missed drawing and creating for myself. I remember asking an art director what she was doing and I found that to be quite appealing.
    She graduated from Art Center [College of Design in Pasadena, Calif.] and pointed me in that direction. I wound up going to Art Center, learning a great deal there and then landing my first job at Saatchi & Saatchi in San Francisco.

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